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Vue XStream Matte Object/Material ??

Hi, I have a scene with a bunch of trees and I want to render some flying cherry blossoms. I was planning on using HV Sprites for the cherry blossoms and rendering them in a separate pass. The problem is that I don't know how (or even if it's possible) to set the VUE stuff to render as a matte object. I've tried using the G-buffer/Multi-pass settings for Vue Xstream, but it ignores the LW stuff (HV particles) and doesn't bother including the ground or tree trunks in the buffers it saves.

Also, the Vue stuff screws up my clip image on my Sprite HVs - causing them to blow out and lose all color. Any tips on changing a Vue light's intensity? There's no intensity settings in the "Object Properties..." or "Edit Object..." menus for the light, and if I change the setting in the LW light panel, it jumps back to 100% if I change something in the Vue scene. Even in Vue Standalone, there's no light intensity setting for this light.... I guess it just works differently than I expect it to.

I can help you, after some major frustrations with figuring this stuff out. The easiest way to get a mask for any particular element you want is to put it in its own layer in Vue. Make a new layer, label it and drag in anything you want a alpha for in it and everything else will be held out. You'll need to use the multipass options to see the results and save them out. Go to the Layer masks tab in multipass and select the layers you want. You can get the inverse masks by selecting the other layers too.

When you render out your layers you must use Vue to render the multipasses. Gbuffer and multipass do not work through Xstream.

As for lights in Xstream it depends on whether you want to use Lightwave lights or Vue lights. You will have maximum control with Vue lights since all the options work like falloff, shadows and inverse squared. The light blow out could be from Vues and Lightwaves default lights on the same time. I usually delete the default Lightwave distant light first and stick to Vue lights only. One reason is that you only get light intensity with Lightwave lights in Xstream, and all options for light exclusion, and the diffuse and specular toggles are disabled.

But remember that you can only tweak Vue lights in Xstream through the Xstream tab options in Lightwave. If you want to turn off the Vue default light for example you would go to the object properties from the Xstream menu and turn it off there. This goes for objects as well.

Also make sure Lightwave is set to Linear color space!, your renders will look blown out with SRGB.

Since we're talking about Layer Masks, here's a neat trick: using this feature allows you to setup up masks for 2D style 'multiplane camera' layering.

For example, in this shot from the Fable: The Journey debut trailer we did last year (starting at around 1:08), I put all the vegetation in front of the carriage in a layer called 'FG Items' and the vegetation behind the carriage in a layer called 'BG Items'. When the scene completed using Multipass as described by Ken, the two masks made it easy to insert the carriage in-between in compositing. (The carriage was lit and rendered in Lightwave and never even brought into the Vue scene but the path it drove on served as the dividing line in Vue.) The Layer Masks also made it easier to independently control the vector blur in each layer for more dramatic effect. And all with a single RGB render! This was a simple but very effective use of Layer Masks in Vue, and more complex uses of the trick can be found throughout the trailer.

Come to think of it, wouldn't it be awesome to have something like this in Lightwave? (Hint, hint.)

Thanks for the input. I appreciate the help and illustrations. Unfortunately, I was hoping to blow some LW particles through a row of trees and keep them as a separate element and it doesn't look like I can do that. I might be able to separate the trees in different layers, but that means losing my current setup. I'm probably trying to do too much with one ecosystem.

For this scene, I think I'm going to try to build the fore/mid ground all in LW so I can have more control and better trees.

The problem I was running into with the lights was that when I went to the Vue lights settings in the XStream panel, I couldn't find a place to adjust the brightness or intensity of that light. I opened Vue standalone and could not find how to control the light intensity there either.

The problem I was running into with the lights was that when I went to the Vue lights settings in the XStream panel, I couldn't find a place to adjust the brightness or intensity of that light. I opened Vue standalone and could not find how to control the light intensity there either.

If your using a LW distant light, or Vues default light, you can only adjust the Light intensity through the Atmosphere editor. All other Vue light types have a power setting if you bring up the light properties panel, which controls their intensity. The distant light is used in Vue as realistic sun light and is more or less under automatic control.